In the picture by M. Sirík (from the left): the first
lady of the Slovak Republic Sylvia Gašparovičová; Ivan
Gašparovič, the President of the Slovak Republic; Valika
Maďarová, the Director of the Andy Warhol Museum of
Modern Art and other guests looking at Andy Warhol’s
works at the gala opening of the exhibition in Dublin.

President Ivan Gašparovič at the gala opening of an
exhibition showing works by Andy Warhol, a
world-known artist of Rusyn descent, in Dublin, the
capital of Ireland, on March 27th, 2007
(in the background, the most famous portrait by Andy
Warhol)

Photo: Miroslav Sirik

On March 27th, 2007 in the Dublin Castle museum in
Ireland, the President of the Slovak Republic, Ivan Gašparovič,
opened an exhibition of Andy Warhol’s works.
The exhibition was curated by Dr. Michal Bycko, PhD. and Mgr.
Martin Cubjak and prepared by the Andy Warhol Museum of Modern
Art (AWMMA) and the Andy Warhol Association in Medzilaborce, in
cooperation with the Embassy of the Slovak Republic in Ireland.
President Ivan Gašparovič, according to available sources, is
the first president of a sovereign state outside of the USA, to
personally take part in an exhibition opening of work by this
significant artist of the second half of the 20th
century. The fact that the roots of this uncrowned king of
pop-art lie in Slovakia, in the Rusyn village of Miková (from
where his Rusyn parents left to look for work in the USA) makes
it even more significant. The exhibition is entitled “ANDY
WARHOL – HIS SLOVAK ROOTS“

The exhibition will run until April 27th, 2007 and on
May 1st, 2007 will be reinstalled in the Cork Public
Museum.

Iveta RUSINKOVÁ, Curator of AWMMA in Medzilaborce, March 30th, 2007

ANDY
WARHOL

LIFE AND ART WORK

DUBLIN CASTLE
MARCH 27, 2007
–
APRIL 27, 2007

CORK PUBLIC MUSEUM
MAY 1, 2007
–
MAY 27, 2007

The
Embassy of the Slovak Republic
20 Clyde Road
Ballsbridge, Dublin

It is really
a special occasion to introduce to the Irish public the
work of Andy Warhol – a famous artist with Slovak roots.
After an exhibition dedicated to the world known
politician Mr. Alexander Dubček in Trinity College two
years ago and after the exhibition devoted to the life
of the founding father of Slovakia, a General of French
Army Mr. Milan Rastislav Štefánik in Aliance Francaise
in Dublin last year, we have now an unique opportunity
to bring to the Dublin Castle the spirit of the king of
pop art Andy Warhol. It is also our privilege to
highlight through this exhibition the first official
visit of the President of Slovakia His Excellency Ivan
Gasparovic to Ireland.

Little Andy was born to Slovak parents after they had
moved to the United States of America as millions of
other families did. The family of little Andy lived in
Pittsburgh where at the beginning of the last century a
very large community of Slovaks lived for obvious
reasons – picturesque landscape of Pennsylvania reminded
our Slovak grandparents of their Slovak homeland and
there was a lot of work opportunities – namely hard
work in the coal mines. After his studies of art at
Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh young Andy
moved to New York where he started to develop fully his
creativity. Andy Warhol brought a very revolutionary
approach to all genres of art he had touched – painting,
sculpture, photography, music, film, fashion,
literature. He, somehow, tried to synchronize the art
with the modern time influenced by consumerism he lived
in – we may say he helped define that time. In 1960 he
founded the famous „Factory“, gathering around himself a
wide range of artists and friends like sir Mick Jagger,
Liza Minelli, John Lennon, David Bowie, Diana Ross,
Brigitte Bardot, later also Michael Jackson. Throughout
the decade it became more and more clear that there had
been profound change in the culture of the art world,
and that Warhol was at the centre of that shift. Let us
mention just a few of his famous works – Campbells Soup
Cans, Coke Bottles, Disaster painting and portraits of
celebrities like Mick Jagger, Marilyn Monroe and Elvis
Presley.

During his life Andy Warhol has achieved something that
many artists dream of but few get to. He became an icon
of a new brand of art – pop art. Some people say he was
weird, well from certain point of view he definitely
was. But it is not true that great artists create their
own world where our optic simply don´t match? Andy
Warhol became celebrity already during his lifetime also
thanks to his popular quotes. He said that „In the
future everyone will be world-famous for 15 minutes“.
Well, this maybe true for everyone but surely not for
Andy Warhol, his world fame has definitely exceeded 15
minutes.

Ten years ago, during my posting at the Embassy of
Slovakia in the US, when I visited Andy Warhol Museum in
Pittsburgh – the largest American art museum dedicated
to a single artist - I told myself it would be nice to
promote the Slovak roots of the king of pop art. Several
years later after Slovakia had joined European Union
during Irish presidency I promised to my Irish friends
to bring Andy Warhol to this beautiful country. I am
very pleased that we have got this exhibition here and
that we can extend the exhibition also to the City of
Cork that gave a warm welcome to my country on its way
to the Union.

on March 22nd, 2007 in Prešov. Born in the Rusyn
village of Michajlov in the Snina region, he was an academic
painter and a teacher of fine arts at the Pedagogical Faculty in
Prešov, P. J. Šafárik University (1961 – 1963), at the
Philosophical Faculty in Prešov (1967 – 1978), and at University
of Fine Arts in Bratislava (1978 – 1990). He was an untiring
artist
and organiser, who loved the still life of his Rusyn fatherland
and whom you could find at every event connected with fine arts
taking place in Prešov. And not only there; at present, there
are three exhibitions of his works in various galleries.
Speaking of galleries, he was a founder of the Atrium Gallery in
Prešov and the honoured chairman of its club. Just a short time
ago, in a good mood and full of strength and vigour, he opened
his last exhibition entitled Pictures from a Drawer on
March 9th, 2007 in Dvorana pod Viničnou skalou (The
Hall under the Wine Rock) in Brekov near Humenné. His scenic
landscapes, portraits (in the picture you can see his
self-portrait) and drawings grace many rooms and galleries, they
please a lot of viewers and will continue to do so in the
future. The burial took place on March 26th, 2007 in
the Prešov Chapel of Rest.

From
September 3rd until September 17th, 2006, Snina
hosted the 13th International Festival of
the Andrej Smolak Gallery. The open air festival was visited by
fifteen international fine artists, especially young painters from the
Czech Republic, Russia, Greece, Poland, Ukraine and Slovakia.

The 13th
year did not miss out sculptors. Ladislav Stano, inspired by a
legend about a sleeping devil, created a sculpture of a devil, which
will be placed at Tri table, a valley situated high up on a hill under
the Sninsky Kamen tor. A work by the young sculptor Stanislava
Gagacova could be seen at the exhibition and it will probably be
placed in the Gallery of Monumental Sculptures.

This year’s
festival was enriched by the artistic design of a new postage stamp by
the late Rusyn painter Dezider Milly, a National Artist
(Translator’s note: National Artist – a title awarded to significant
artists.)born in Kyjov, (in the Stara Lubovna region). The stamp
will be issued on October, 20th, 2006. The
grand finale of the festival took place on September 15th,
2006 in the cinema hall of the Town Culture House, where, among
others, the A. Dukhnovich Theatre from Prešov performed their play
Princove halušky (The Prince’s Halushki). From September 18th
until September 30th, 2006, the visitors could see some
of the artistic works presented at the above-mentioned open-air festival
in the premises of Matica slovenska (The Slovak League) in Snina.

- sk -

(Shortened
and edited by A. Z.;thecompletearticle
entitled „Snina v znamen´i vytvarnoho umeňa“ can, in the Rusyn
version, be found on our website, in the column VYTVARNICTVO (FINE
ARTS).)

Juraj
Molnar
(1938), born in Kyjov (inthe Stara
Lubovna region), was, in his work, inspired especially by his
fatherland, the beauty of which has always spoken to sensitive and
perceptive people; and the author himself is one of them. No surprise
his heart is so big, as throughout his whole life, he has helped people
as a hospital attendant, which requires a lot of sensitivity and
understanding of the ill. Hardly anybody knew, though, that in those
helping hands lay a hidden talent to hold and handle a brush. That is
why, at the exhibition, a pleasant surprise was also expressed by the
present doctors and the former colleagues of the author. Everybody could
see him as a modest, quiet and very religious person loving natural
beauty, but also spiritual beauty, which was mentioned in the speech of
Mgr. Father Peter Pavol Halko, OSBM, a vicar for Rusyns of the
Greek-Catholic Church.Theartist wasalso
acknowledgedby the Mayor of Prešov Ing. Milan Benc. Mr
Chamila, the Mayor of Kyjov, spoke on behalf of the author’s
fellow townsfolk. Anna Poracova-Sutakova with her daughter Anicka,
Anna Servicka and Regina Jaroscakova pleased all those
attendingtheceremonialopening of the exhibition
with their singing,

At the
opening of Juraj Molnar’s
exhibition, which took place on September 10th, 2006 in
Prešov, among others, the Rusyn singers Anna Poracova-Sutakova with her
daughter Anicka performed. Father Peter Pavol Halko, a vicar for Rusyns
of the Greek-Catholic Church (on the
right),wasalsopresent. Second from the
right – Juraj Molnar, the featured artist.

Photo: Tomas Majernik

It can be
appreciated that those attending could also hear spoken and sung Rusyn,
as the author himself as well as a majority of the audience were Rusyns.
It is necessary to say that, recently, we have not attended many events
in Prešov where so many Rusyns of such a high spiritual level have beenpresent. The opening could surely be seen as a presentation of
Rusyn folk fine art and Rusynity in general.

PhDr.
Maria MALCOVSKA

(Shortened
and edited by A. Z.; the complete article entitled „Anonimnyj
maľar´ sja napovno projavîv“ can, in the Rusyn version, be found on
our website, in the column VYTVARNICTVO (FINE ARTS).)

2005

The International
Exhibition of Rusyn Fine Art, opened within the
8th World Congress of Rusyns in the Polish town of Krynica with Polish
and Slovak artists in attendance. It took place between June 24th and
July 24 in the Nikifora Museum.

2003

The
first international biennial of Rusyn fine art (Presov, Slovakia), took
place within the 7th World Congress of Rusyns. The biennial was held in
the Saris Museum in Presov from June 7th until July 7th, 2003 and was
sponsored by Steven Chepa of Toronto who donated USD 1 000.

The cultural and artistic evolution of Rusyns living on
both sides of the *Carpathian Mountains has been largely
influenced by their geographical location at the meeting
place of central, eastern, and southeastern Europe. The
fact that their homeland has been located on the
periphery of every state in which they have lived has
also had a significant impact on the spiritual sphere of
Rusyn society. These two characteristics are evident in
the archeological remains found during the Copper and
Bronze Ages (3000-900 BCE). The oldest remaining
examples of cultural artifacts created by tribes living
in the Upper Tisza Region south of the Carpathian crests
appear even earlier, during the Neolithic Period
(5000-3000 BCE). These include clay female figures that
suggest the existence of a cult of the mother-goddess or
a life-giving god. At the end of the second and outset
of the first millennium BCE, the Upper Tisza Region
became a center for metal-working and a source for metal
instruments for tribes living nearby and farther afield.
For the longest time, metal production was concentrated
in what later became the towns of Mukachevo, Berehovo,
and Vynohradovo. More than 300 objects from this period
attest to the high quality of production.

For instance, semi-utilitarian objects like hammers for
minting, axes, lance tips, and swords all have forms and
ornamentation that point to a high level of artistic
sophistication. Copper and bronze ornaments, mostly
bracelets, spiral armbands, hair-pins, rings, fibula,
and shoulder bands, are the oldest examples of applied
art. Metallic artifacts from the Copper and Bronze Ages
displayed in museums throughout Subcarpathian Rus’,
eastern Slovakia, and Hungary, are, in terms of their
artistic value, comparable to the better known
collections of metal production from centers in the
Caucasus and Ural mountains. The Bronze Age culture of
the Upper Tisza Region gradually was transformed into
the culture of the Iron Age. This is evident from the
strength of that culture’s representatives, the northern
Thracians of the Hallstatt civilization and later the
Celts of La Tène civilization. Both were represented by
agricultural and livestock raising populations, whose
way of life became an important element in the
subsequent formation of Slavic cultures in the Upper
Tisza Region. A profound change in the culture and art
of the Upper Tisza Region took place following the
introduction of Christianity during the late ninth and
early tenth centuries. The multiethnic population of the
region was now thrust into the vigorous wave of European
Christian civilization. The result in the eastern
Carpathians and their foothills was the creation of an
amalgam of local folk art and the already canonized
cultural norms of the Christian church in western and
southeastern Europe (the Balkans). Christianity itself
brought to the Upper Tisza Region elements from Europe’s
two great cultural spheres: the Byzantine or Orthodox
East and the Latin or Catholic West. The most
distinctive monuments of both the East and the West, as
well as those that have been best preserved in *Carpathian
Rus’, are its architectural structures (see Architecture).

With regard to the fine arts, all that has survived from
this early period are the fourteenth-century frescoes
depicting the life and suffering of Christ on the walls
of the *Horiany Rotunda (near Uzhhorod in *Subcarpathian
Rus’). These were painted by artists under the influence
of the early Renaissance Italian master, Giotto
(1266-1337). Stylistically, the Horiany frescoes are
related to those in churches of neighboring Slovakia,
where a group of Italian artists had been working.
Gothic fresco painting also made its way into
Subcarpathian Rus’, as seen on the walls of the nave
added to the Horiany Rotunda (Crucifixion and St. Mary
the Protectress from the 15th century) and on the walls
of the church in Kid’osh (The Appearance of Christ to
Mary Magdalene, The Holy Grail, and St. Catherine, 15th
century). Nor were these frescoes unique to the region;
others in the same style appeared in several churches (Muzhiievo,
Chornotysovo, etc.), although they were destroyed during
the wars of the Reformation in the sixteenth and
seventeenth centuries. These works were painted by
masters connected to the northern European Gothic, whose
influence reached the foothills of the Carpathians via
German colonists. During the sixteenth and seventeenth
centuries, Subcarpathian Rus’ and eastern Slovakia found
themselves in the center of the protracted war between
the Habsburgs and Transylvania. The conflicts not only
discouraged the production of new art, they also
contributed to destroying existing artistic works,
especially in the towns. The result is that works from
the Renaissance and early Baroque period, whether
religious or secular in nature, have not survived.
Meanwhile, spiritual life in the Rusyn village continued
to evolve on its own, so that the resultant specific
characteristics found in religious images (icons)
produced throughout Carpathian Rus’ have led some art
historians to refer to Carpathian-style icons, or to a
Carpathian school of icon painting. Despite contacts
between Carpathian Rus’ and Orthodox religious centers
in the south (the Balkans) and the north (Galicia),
artistic works in Rusyn churches were far from those
based on classic Eastern Christian Byzantine models.
Although there were some exceptions, Rusyn icons were
generally rendered in a primitive rustic folk style.
After all, parishioners living in poor villages in the *Carpathian
Mountains and lower foothills were hardly able to afford
to purchase icons from professional painters, let alone
permanently engage the services of such masters. Instead,
they had to be satisfied with what they could get from
local iconographers who had no training.

For these painters, it was the content of an icon, not
the technical skill with which it was painted, that was
all important. From their perspective, the icon was to
convey a clear spiritual message or recall a well-known
story from the annals of Christianity and not attempt to
depict reality in a naturalistic manner. The best
examples of Rusyn folk icons are preserved in churches
in the mountainous highland (Verkhovyna) parts of
Subcarpathian Rus’ and in the *Prešov Region Rusyn
villages of eastern Slovakia and the *Lemko Region of
southeastern Poland (see Map 2). The oldest example is
the sixteenth-century icon, Praise to the Mother of God,
from the village church in Iza (Subcarpathian Rus’),
which has become known in the annals of folk icons as
the “Carpathian Madonna.” This type of Mother of God,
the Hodegetria, that is, a tender Virgin Mary expressing
a sense of anxiety and sadness, became a model for other
folk icon-painters during the sixteenth and seventeenth
centuries, such as the Hodegetria in the village of
Rovné (16th century). From the village church in Rovné
has also come the best-known icon in terms of the
aesthetic quality of its composition, the Deesis, as
well as icons of St. Paraskeva and St. Michael the
Archangel. Despite their rustic quality, all reveal the
strong influence of late Byzantine icons. Similar in
style are icons from Rusyn villages in the Prešov Region:
The Image of Christ Not With Hands and The Last Judgment
in Venecia; St. Nicholas and St. Michael the Archangel
in Uličské Krivé; and St. Nicholas in Príkra. The
Baroque era also had an impact on Carpathian icons, in
particular through the introduction of a new aesthetic
that included a rejection of mysticism and asceticism,
and a sense of joy in the earthly life. Baroque
influence grew in connection with the acceptance of the
*Unia/Church Union (1596 in Galicia, 1646 in
Subcarpathia). There even arose what might be called
centers of iconography operated by brotherhood guilds,
such as the one in the Galician town of Sudova Vyshnia.
From there came the most renowned Baroque icon painter,
Illia *Brodlakovych, who in the mid-seventeenth century
lived and worked in the Subcarpathian city of Mukachevo.
Brodlakovych’s icon done for the village church in
Shelestovo, The Archangel Michael (1646), reveals the
clear influence of monumental-style Italian Baroque
painting. He painted icons in this same style for the
village church in Rus’ke near Mukachevo. Another
iconographer from the Sudova Vyshnia center, Ivan
Vyshens’kyi, completed an iconostasis for the village of
Sukhyi during the 1680s; it was, however, much more
rustic in character. The same church includes fragments
of an iconostasis by Ivan Shyrets’kyi from Galicia, The
Sacrifice of Abraham and The Beheading of St. John the
Baptist. In both works the painter rendered biblical
figures in contemporary garb and placed them against a
backdrop of local Subcarpathian architecture or a
mountain landscape.

To this group of works also belong icons from the Lemko
Region villages of Brunary, Nowa Wieś, and Szczawnik,
and the Prešov Region villages of Venecia, Matysová,
Príkra, and Krivé, all of which are distinguished by
distinct graphic ornamentation. Another center of
iconography lay in the far western Lemko Region,
probably in the small town of Muszyna. Its workshops
supplied icons to churches in both the Lemko Region and
the Prešov Region on the southern slopes of the
mountains. Icons from the “Muszyna school” were noted
for their stylistic and iconographic conservatism and
the dominance of linear graphic features with plant-like
decorative elements in the background. They were
generally of high technical standard and reflected deep
spiritual inspiration on the part of their creators.
Many of their features were clearly related to the
religious art of Moldavia, which is a likely indication
of the Lemko Region’s links to the much older Byzantine
Orthodox church traditions and religious art of the
Balkans. The oldest known icon from the Muszyna school
dates from 1623 (The Last Judgment in Powroźnik by Pavlo
Rodŷmskii); the most recent from 1654 (The Mother of God
Hodegetria in Venecia, transferred from Nowa Wieś).
Other examples of icons from the Muszyna school are
found in several villages in the western part of the
Lemko Region (Szczawnik, Jastrzębik, Leluchów, Stawisza,
Zubrzyk, Nowa Wieś, Brunary Wyżne, Banica, Czarna,
Złockie, Bodaki) as well as in the nearby Prešov Region
(Tročany, Matysová, Príkra, Venecia), including The Last
Judgment by Pavlo of Muszyna now held in a gallery in
Košice. By the end of the seventeenth century, rustic
folk elements were becoming more and more pronounced in
Rusyn iconography. The icons were gradually evolving
into folk paintings, rendered in a spirit of naive
realism that transformed traditional themes into a kind
of visual “Bible for the poor.” Typical of such icons
were those from churches in Šarišský Štiavnik (mid-17th
century), Hunkovce, and Venecia in the Prešov Region. An
important center for folk-style icons was the workshop
in the small Galician town of Rybotycze/Rybotychi, which
completed works for Rusyn churches on both sides of the
Carpathians during the late seventeenth and early
eighteenth centuries.

The center turned iconography into a trade, although the
icons were so poorly done from the artistic standpoint
that they—and others of similar quality—were given the
pejorative descriptor of a “Rybotychi product” (rybotyts’ka
robota). This was also a period when icons painted on
wood disappeared. They were replaced by icons on canvas,
and even embroidered icons, both which were cheaper and
more accessible for poverty-stricken villages during the
ongoing wars that wracked the Subcarpathian region in
the seventeenth century . In these difficult times the
most popular icon themes were those that raised moral
and ethical issues: “The Last Judgment” and “St. George
Killing the Dragon.” Particularly important for the
development of Rusyn iconography were the decisions
reached at a council (synod) of the Greek Catholic
Church held in Zamość, Poland (1720), which effectively
defined certain distinctions between the liturgy as it
was performed in Greek Catholic and Orthodox churches.
The impact of decisions at Zamość was particularly
noticeable in the Lemko Region and Prešov Region, where
many old iconostases in Rusyn churches were being
replaced with new ones in the Baroque style. Alongside
iconography, the Baroque period was notable for wall
paintings inside wooden churches. Their creators tried
to imitate wall paintings on concrete town and city
churches. Wooden church interior wall paintings have
been preserved in the Subcarpathian churches of
Novoselytsia, Kolodne, Oleksandrivka/Shandrovo, and
Serednie Vodniane, all located in *Maramorosh county.
The oldest of these are The Passion of Christ and The
Last Judgment in Novoselytsia (late 17th century) by a
primitivist who was obviously acquainted with Baroque
painting. The wall paintings in the apse of the church
in Kolodne date from the first half of the eighteenth
century whereas those in the nave, completed by a
painter with professional training, Antonii Vali, are
decidedly Baroque in character. Similar are the interior
wall paintings of the church in Serednie Vodiane,
although the most complex Baroque paintings were those
on the interior walls of the church at Oleksandrivka,
completed in 1779 by Shtefan Terebovl’s’kyi, an artist
who trained under central European masters. Here one
finds professionally rendered Baroque square and
alternating scroll-shaped ornamental elements (cartouches)
that appear as if they are part of a continuous frieze
filled with saints clothed in secular garb. By the
outset of the nineteenth century, iconography in the
folk style was on the decline and was gradually being
replaced by late Baroque painting which, in Rusyn
society, was still being commissioned by the Greek
Catholic Church. The first professional artist in this
category was Iosyf *Zmii-Miklovshii, the “eparchial
painter” for the bishop of Prešov. Trained in Vienna,
Zmii-Myklovshii painted a whole series of works for
Rusyn churches throughout *Sharysh, *Zemplyn, and *Abov
counties as well as the altar paintings for the Greek
Catholic cathedral church in Prešov.

He was also the first painter to do commissioned
portraits, genre scenes, and landscapes. However, in
what was still an economically underdeveloped
patriarchal Rusyn society, there were no serious
material resources to sustain the development of secular
art. Instead, from time to time painters like Ferdinánd
Vidra (1815-1879) or Ferenc Heverdle (1841-1910) would
come to the region, paint some church interiors in a
late Baroque style, as well as a few landscape and genre
scenes in an academic Romantic spirit, and then move on.
They never had any serious ties to Rusyn society. On the
other hand, there were some artists from the Carpathian
region itself. They trained in Vienna or Budapest and
then remained in those centers, returning to their
homeland only occasionally as visitors. Typical of such
figures was the well-known Hungarian artist of Rusyn
origin, Ignatii *Roshkovych, who painted major frescoes
in Budapest for the royal palace, St. Stephen’s
Cathedral, and the Roman Catholic church on Joseph’s
Boulevard and in Kecskemét for the cathedral church, as
well as altar paintings for the Greek Catholic cathedral
church in Prešov and for churches in Snina, Krasna, and
Mala Kopania. Roshkovych was also a noted academic
portraitist and illustrator of the chapters dealing with
Rusyn-inhabited counties that appeared in the monumental
late nineteenth-century encyclopedia of the Habsburg
Empire, Die österreischische Monarchie in Wort und Bild.
While he created scenes typical of Rusyn life, even here
Roshkovych remained an outside observer, an artist from
the capital. The same could be said for other Hungarian
artists of Rusyn origin, including the sculptor Ödön
Szamovolszky/Edmund Samovols’kyi, and the painters
Mykhaïl Hrabar and Atanasii Homichkov. It is also true
that during the late nineteenth and early twentieth
centuries several renowned artists of Magyar origin
lived and worked in Subcarpathian Rus’—Simon Hollósy in
Tiachovo and Imre Révész in Vynohradovo/Sevliush—but
their works had no influence at all on the region’s
cultural life. The profound political changes that
accompanied the end of World War I also had an impact on
Rusyn artistic life. Subcarpathian Rus’ and the Prešov
Region became part of Czechoslovakia and Uzhhorod became
the administrative center for what was a Rusyn
territorial entity. The city was also gradually
transformed into a cultural center that provided the
stimulus for several local painters to create in 1921 a
regional group of artists. The group’s initiator was a
painter of the older generation, Iulii *Virag/Gyula
Virágh, who managed to attract to the group Gyula Ilyász/Iulii
Iatsyk (1974-1942), Károly Izai (1887-1938), Sámuel
Beregi, Ievhen Kron, Andor Novák, Teodor Musson, Iosyf *Bokshai,
Adal’bert *Erdeli, and Emil *Hrabovs’kyi.

Like Virag, most of these artists were of the older
generation and worked in the style of academic realism,
while a few others leaned toward the already developed
trend of Hungarian Secessionism. Only the last three (Bokshai,
Erdeli, Hrabovs’kyi) represented a new generation
anxious to form a distinct artistic school, in a sense
their own “Barbizon,” and not simply remain a regional
group of artists dependent on cultural centers elsewhere.
It was felt, moreover, that this new school should be
attuned to the most contemporary European artistic
currents while at the same time responding to the needs
of Subcarpathia’s unfolding spiritual and cultural
revival. Since the group established by Virag could not
respond to such needs, it disappeared after just a few
joint exhibits. The new movement that came into being,
later known as the Subcarpathian School of Painting, was
established by Bokshai, Erdeli, Hrabovs’kyi, and Fedor *Manailo.
All of them had received professional training of
European standards, and they were very aware of the
current artistic trends in Budapest, Vienna, Munich,
Paris, and Prague, which ranged from academic formalism
to impressionism, secessionism (art nouveau), the
Nagybánya/Baia Mare School, post-impressionism, cubism,
and expressionism. Secure in their professional
knowledge, filled with strong convictions about the role
of the artist in society, and having participated in
numerous exhibits held in the leading European cultural
centers, these Subcarpathian artists were able to become
truly independent and to rise above the kind of
provincial and nationalistic passions that were dividing
Subcarpathian society. These relatively young but
artistically mature painters decided to make use of the
tools they learned in Europe and, through their own
talent, to reveal the beauty of the people of
Subcarpathian Rus’, to reflect in their own art the
wealth of local folk mythology, and to infuse their
canvases with a sense of the epic grandeur of the
Carpathian landscape. They were, in fact, successful in
achieving all these goals. The success of the
Subcarpathian School was in part related to its members’
larger commitment to society. In 1927, they established
in Uzhhorod a Public School of Painting through which
they passed on their knowledge to talented Rusyn youth.
The result was the formation of a second generation of
painters who were representative of the Subcarpathian
School, including Andrii *Kotska, Adal’bert *Borets’kyi,
Ernest *Kontratovych, Zoltan *Sholtes, Andrii Dobosh (b.
1911), Ivan Erdeli (brother of Adal’bert), György
Endrédy, and Vasyl’ Dvan-Sharpotokii. It is interesting
to note that not one of these artists became a
second-rate slavish imitator of his teachers; instead,
each one followed an individual creative path while
remaining within and enriching the Subcarpathian School
of Painting. In 1931, the Subcarpathian School was given
a formal organizational basis with the creation of the
Society of Fine Arts in Subcarpathian Rus’/Obshchestvo
dieiatelei izobrazitel’nykh iskusstv na Podkarpatskoi
Rusi. The society made stringent demands on its members
and, in particular, was critical of any work that
smacked of dilettantism, salon art, or official ideology.
Its exhibits contained only paintings that were
carefully assessed in order to maintain a high standard
of professionalism and aesthetic achievement equal to
that of artistic centers in central Europe.

Contemporary populist and nationalist-minded artists and
critics among Ukrainians in neighboring Galicia and the
Ukrainian emigration throughout central Europe did “not
take note” of the achievements of the Subcarpathian
School, since the latter’s members studiously avoided
creating works that rendered ethnographic scenes in a
pseudo-patriotic style. The Subcarpathian School was
also ignored by the contemporary Ukrainian Circle of
Plastic Arts in Prague, for the most part because of the
latter’s uncompromising commitment to the values of the
international avant-garde. On the other hand,
Czechoslovak artistic circles welcomed the work of the
Subcarpathian School, and the Hungarian regime that
ruled the province during World War II basically
tolerated the creative independence of Subcarpathian
artists. The subsequent annexation of Subcarpathian Rus’
to the Soviet Union and the establishment of a Communist
regime after 1945 had a profoundly negative impact on
the arts, as it did on many other spheres of life. The
Communists so-called cultural revolution meant the
acceptance by all creative artists of the principles of
Socialist Realism, with its pseudo-positivist
photographic style and posterlike didacticism. The
ruling “cultural authorities” in Soviet Transcarpathia
were negatively disposed to the post-impressionism of
Erdeli and the expressionism of Manailo and Kontratovych.
The Communists quickly abolished Subcarpathia’s Society
of Fine Arts and they mocked Erdeli’s efforts to
transform the pre-war Public School of Painting into an
academy of art. Instead, the government created a
middle-level institution, the School of Applied Arts/Uchylyshche
prykladnoho mystetstva in Uzhhorod, which, thanks only
to the talents of Erdeli, Bokshai, and others who taught
there, maintained a high professional standard. Only
through sustained efforts were the founders of the
Subcarpathian School of Painting, working as they were
within the new and unfavorable ideological conditions of
Soviet-ruled Transcarpathia, able to preserve and to
pass on to the next generation the basic elements of
post-impressionist Carpathian landscape painting. As for
the Subcarpathian School of Painting, it ceased to exist
as such. Some of its former members left the region and
settled in neighboring countries, while others, broken
under the pressure of Socialist Realism, were forced to
betray their own artistic principles. Nevertheless, the
achievements of Rusyn painters during the 1920s-1940s
somehow survived. They inspired a new generation of
Subcarpathian artists, who were given an opportunity to
prove themselves during the “Khrushchev Thaw” of the
late 1950s and early 1960s.

They included Anton *Kashshai, Vasyl’ *Habda, Ivan
Shutiev, Volodymyr *Mykyta, Mykhailo Sapatiukh (b.
1925), Iurii *Herts, Iulii Stashko (b. 1923), Pavlo
Bedzyr (b. 1926), and Iosyf Harani (b. 1921). By the
1970s and 1980s, yet another current swept the
Subcarpathian art world—a strongly individualistic move
away from realistic depictions of everyday life toward a
dynamic abstractionism. This creative process was
suddenly stopped in its tracks, however, as a result of
the economic crisis that swept independent Ukraine after
1991 and that brought within its wake the crass
commercialization of artistic productivity. In contrast
to Subcarpathian Rus’ and its center, Uzhhorod, after
World War I the town of Prešov and the Prešov Region in
general lost the leading role that they had previously
played in Rusyn life, including Rusyn art. In fact, the
only artistic phenomenon of any note was a display held
in 1927 at the Greek Catholic episcopal residence in
Prešov and advertised as “an exhibit of Rusyn folk
culture.” In the absence of any long-term vibrant
cultural activity, one can only speak of individual
artists of Rusyn background who worked in the Prešov
Region as well as in the Lemko Region. While they may
have maintained contact with their native Rusyn
environment, their works are in essence part of either
Slovak or Polish artistic development. The most
important figure in the artistic life of Rusyns in the
Prešov Region was Dezyderii *Myllyi. Myllyi used modern
artistic styles to depict a fairylike mythologized
version of the Carpathian landscape. His contemporary,
Mykhailo *Dubai, painted landscapes, portraits, and
works on sacred themes that were stylistically
influenced by Cubism. Much more diversified were the
graphics, sculptures, bas-reliefs, and gobelins of Orest
*Dubai. It was only during the 1990s that Rusyn artists
in the Prešov Region began to function as a distinct
group. With the assistance of the *Rusyn Renaissance
Society/Rusyn’ska obroda, a Plenum of Rusyn Professional
Artists/Plener rusyn’skŷkh profesional’nŷkh khudozhnykiv
has come into being and has sponsored exhibits of
several artists (Ivan Nestor *Shafranko, Andrii *Gai,
Mykhal *Chabala, Nikolai Gaidosh, Mykhal Bytsko,
Aleksander *Zozuliak, Pavel Mokhnats’kyi) in several
towns throughout northeastern Slovakia (Prešov, Snina,
Humenné), as well as neighboring Poland (Krynica). A
unique and at the same time distinguished phenomenon in
the artistic world of Slovakia’s Rusyns is the political
caricaturist Fedor *Vitso. After their resettlement and
forced deportation to western Poland and Ukraine
(1945-1947) the cultural life of Lemko Rusyns lost its
purpose, so that even more than in the Prešov Region one
can really speak only of individual artists.